Guwahati molestation: Let the blame game begin!

Another shocking incident. Another time the country has come to a standstill. Case in point: the Guwahati and the Gujarat shockers.
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A mob goes ahead and molests a teenager. They beat her, humiliate her, grope her private parts, strip her in full public view. Another hundred watch the ‘show’ with rapt attention, not wanting to miss out on any single iota of it. And then there are others who shoot the entire sham on camera and upload it on the Internet without any qualm whatsoever.
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And then there are even more. The ones who are lurking in the dark, waiting for the brouhaha to settle down just a bit, so as to ready themselves to pounce upon another victim. If she was a teenager, she should have been studying at home instead of venturing out in the dark. She should have been aware of the fact that there are men whose libidinal control is now a thing of some other planet. She should have known what she was up to. She was in a ‘short’ skirt. And then would come ‘The Judgement’ on it all – “She deserved it.”
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The Conscientious Objectors are all dead in a country like ours. Pick out the most backward country of the world from the Dark Ages, and India, today, can provide stiff competition to it.
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I find my blood boiling with sheer loathing for these evil, diabolic men. My fingers shiver as I write this. Being a girl, that is nothing abnormal.
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There are promises, there are orders, there are castigations. And then there is that inherent part of any such incident – the blame game. This wasn’t the only such occurrence in a decade or so. There are severely shocking news that one is faced with every single day. What differentiates this from the others is perhaps the level of apathy that has been meted out to the entire incident – right from the way it was captured on camera, from the sniggering men, from the way the girl was made to literally ‘shout’ her name and identity on the microphone. All this has dealt a huge blow to our sense, sensibility and sensitivity. There is a feeling of numbness that gradually grows on a person as the video progresses. Anger, disgust, loathing and a plethora of other emotions give way to it. After a point, it seems to be a glimpse of some other unheard of, unrecognised barbaric society where there is absolutely no regard for any emotion, remotely human.
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The Verdict is passed. What was she doing in a pub, after all?
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That was the East. Known for its ostensibly ‘safe’ environment for women. The men made sure that they raped, to the core, that epithet and left it in the throes of an outburst such as this.
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Cut to the West of the country. A place called Dahod in Gujarat. A college girl is gulled under the false promise of marriage by her neighbour. She is called to the criminal’s house, offered a drink laced with sedatives. Once she loses consciousness, the girl is raped brutally – on camera. The footage is converted into CDs and sold online. The media works itself into frenzy for a few days, and the order of the world is restored.
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And then comes ‘The Verdict’: It was the girl’s fault. She shouldn’t have let someone dupe her that easily. She should have understood what was there behind the guise of the goodness that her neighbour was showing her.
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Two distinct incidents, two shocking instances of apathy unleashed. Along with several people who are shouting themselves hoarse demanding justice for the victims, there are many others who are frantically trying to transform the ones victimised into the ones guilty of it all. For all I know, they will next charge the victims for ‘seducing’ the men. In a country where more than a hundred people can play party to another thirty indulging in such a heinous act, blames are bound to pour in.
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It was, definitely, the girls’ fault.